Stop 24 is located just minutes from the Eurotunnel and the Port of Dover. It also doubles up as a 'Port Early Arrival Facility', meaning that anyone early for their ship or a train can stop by and rest before heading onwards.

Parking Prices

First two hours free for all vehicles. After this, cars must pay £6 per 24 hour period. Tickets can be bought at the self service pay point next to the Bureau de Change.

Parking is available for caravans, motorhomes and HGVs in designated areas. The first two hours are free and overnight parking costs £20 or £24 to include a £5 meal voucher. The overnight parking includes free use of the Shower facilities in the main amenity building.

Trivia

Sitting against the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, Folkestone officially opened on the 9th January 2008 but the services themselves actually opened a few days earlier (before any of the signs were put up), giving them the nickname 'the secret services'. Many of the units didn't open until a few days later, and the hotel, a Days Inn, wasn't scheduled to open until Autumn 2008. However, it wasn't built at all and to this day, there is no hotel at the site.

It's located at the first exit after the Channel Tunnel, perhaps making lorry drivers from France navigate local traffic on their way to the toilet wasn't the smartest of ideas.

Having been removed from just about every service station, Wimpy made a surprising return to the services. It was then removed again in 2013.

Planning

Several plans for these services were originally submitted in the early 1990s, but the Department for Transport rejected them all as it said they weren't suitable. In 2010 Henry Boot Developments tried to sue several companies for misrepresenting the number of visitors, facilities and signs on the motorway these services would get. The case was dismissed.

The original plans were for the services to be open by November 2007.

Until it opened, Maidstone was the only service area on the 50-mile M20 motorway.

The Name

Folkestone doesn't actually have a name. Stop 24, the operator, call it Stop 24 and Extra, who owned the petrol station and leased it out to Shell, call it Folkestone. As if this wasn't enough, the locals call it Westenhanger and the Highways Agency call it Saltwood! The signs on the road don't refer to it by name, simply 'services and port early arrivals'.